Ms Josephine Siao Fong Fong

1947-

Actress

Actress Josephine Siao Fong Fong, née Xiao Liang, was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong with her parents at age two. Her father passed away when she was three. She became a child actor at six to help support the family. Her performance in The Orphan Girl (1956) garnered the Best Child Actor Award at the 2nd Southeast Asian Film Festival. In the mid-1960s, Siao and Connie Chan Po Chu starred in Colourful Youth (1966), which set off a wave of Cantonese movie musicals. In 1968, Siao quit acting to study in the United States. Upon her return, she appeared in Hiroshima 28 (1974) and Jumping Ash (1976). In 1977, she turned to television; her comic “Lam Ah-chun” persona in the show of the same name was wildly popular. Siao has been involved in more than 200 Cantonese and Mandarin films, covering a wide range of genres. She scooped the Best Actress Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards twice, for The Wrong Couples (1987) and Summer Snow (1995). Summer Snow also won her Best Actress at both the Berlinale and the Golden Horse Awards, while Hu-Du-Men (1996) saw her named Best Actress at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival and the Golden Horse Awards. In 1998, Siao founded the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation to protect children under 18 from sexual abuse. In 2009, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards.